Hank Aaron

Race was and still is an important factor in American society. More importantly, race played a large role in the participation of professional American sports such as baseball during the 1940's to the 1970's. This was the time of "Hammer," Hank Aaron, one of baseballÐ''s greats that would strive for African American civil rights.

Baseball has always been a popular interest to both whites and blacks. Because of the majority of blacks, ghettos supported a rich sporting life, but because of the racial discriminating Jim Crow laws of the south, blacks were prohibited to play along side white ball players in the National and American baseball leagues. In response, blacks usually set up and managed their own teams, playing other self-managed, all black teams through barnstorming trips or between local towns. There was never a set schedule a team would play because the residents could not support a talented black baseball league with the low income these ghettos had.[1]

The first of two professional black leagues formed was the Negro National League, with teams from Detroit, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Chicago and St. Louis. The Great Depression of the late 1920's and lasting through the 1940's caused the collapse of the Negro National League. But like many of the Negro leagues that rose and fell a new league developed called the Negro American League which lasted longer.

White Major League baseball managers and Americans in general began to notice the athleticism and accomplishments of African Americans in sports. Jesse Owens had been awarded four gold medals at the Olympics in Germany [2], which defied the perfect race theory of Nazi, Germany and Joe Louis Knocked out Max Schmeling, a German, in the first round in 1938.[3] This was a period in time where African Americans were being recognized as national heroes because of their accomplishments in sports such as track and field and boxing, but one American sport still remained highly segregated and that was baseball.

The Plessy vs. Ferguson trial created the term "separate but equal" which just intensified segregation but it wasn't until the Brown vs. Board of Education trial that the Civil Rights Movement seemed to be rolling positively forward and chipping away at the Jim Crow laws, or so it tried. Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player to break the color line in baseball in 1946. Coming from the Negro American League's Kansas City Monarchs, Robinson was then signed, with the help of manager Branch Rickey, to the national farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Montreal Royals. Then one year later in 1947, Robinson joined the Dodgers.[4]

Baseball was not integrated overnight and there still was a lot of work to be done as far as equal rights. More and more black players joined Major League teams but were designated to non-central positions, such as the outfield where they would not stand out among the white players with great success. The black players that were signed to these teams were above average players with high batting averages because that was the only way they would be able to play Major League ball. If any of the black players signed showed a bad performance, that was the end of their career. This was the only opportunity black players had so there was too much at stake to screw things up. I Had a Hammer, the Hank Aaron Story, by Hank Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, describes the struggles an African American faced in baseball and American society during the 1940's to present day.

Hank Aaron was a raggedy, skinny kid, that didn't know how to make a living and had never left the black parts of Mobile, Alabama in his life, but at the age of barely eighteen, he set out on a train boarded to play with the Indianapolis Clowns. Traveling across towns Aaron had never seen before, where there was a majority of white people, he had never felt more alone in his life.

As Aaron arrived to the Clowns, he was nothing but a target for the veteran players. They made fun of his worn-out shoes, his glove and the fact that he batted cross-handed. It wasn't until Aaron swung his bat that his teammates began talking to him. One day Dewey Griggs of the Braves, approached Aaron and stated that he was concerned with his style of play. So he suggested Aaron to throw the ball over hand, and he could definitely throw. Then Griggs suggested that Aaron should not bat cross-handed, then the next time Aaron went up to bat he hit a home run.

Robinson did break the color line in baseball but only in the north, baseball wouldn't be truly integrated until Henry Aaron, Horace Garner, Felix Mantilla, Fleming Reedy and Al Israel would break the color line in the deep South by making it through the season in the Sally League. The first game against the Red Sox in Jacksonville was considered a "historic event" according to the Florida Times Union. This is the place where Jackie Robinson had been locked out six years before. Aaron knew going into the game that he couldn't change the color he was and that fans would be vicious. Throughout the game the black players heard comments like "nigger," "burr head" and "eight-ball." Even the white players on their own team were giving a difficult time to Aaron and the others. There were so many times when Aaron and the others wanted to leave the Sally League and go home, but with the support of each other they stuck out the racial slurs and hardships to last through the entire season chipping away at the discrimination of the south. Little by little, southern fans began to except them as ball players.

Hank Aaron was then given a contract by the Milwaukee Braves